When it comes to their genre of expertise, Real Time Strategy, Ensemble Studios are widely referred to as “the developer that mainstreamed the Real Time Strategy genre". Sure, Westwood beat them to the punch with Dune and C&C, but Ensemble streamlined and polished the hell out the concept and made it awesome.
Kick back and relax as we make time to trace the finer details of this powerhouse Studio’s rags to riches story.
1995 – Ensemble Studios is founded in Dallas, Texas by Tony Goodman, his brother Rick Goodman, Bruce Sullivan, and Bruce Shelley
1997 - Age of Empires is released on PC. Tony Goodman and Bruce Shelley have aspirations of selling 100,000 copies of their inaugural game. Age of Empires becomes an overnight sensation. After a mere six months, they’ve sold 500,000 copies.
Metacritic score: 83 , Gamerankings: 87.3%
1998 – Rick Goodman leaves Ensemble to found his own studio, Stainless Steel Studios. The studio goes on to produce Empire Earth.
1998 - Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome. This expansion pack to the original game offers only a few changes to the actual gameplay. The most notable changes include the Roman architectural style, larger maps and interface tweaks; such as adding unit queuing, using the period key to cycle through idle villagers, balancing damage done by catapults, and increasing the population limit.
Metacritic score: N/A , Gamerankings: 80%
1999 - Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. In this sequel the player guides a society through four "ages". The game begins in the Dark Ages and progresses through to the Feudal Age, the Castle Age, and finally the Imperial Age. Critics noted that the unit pathfinding and AI is vastly improved in AOE2 over previous real time strategy games.
Metacritic score: 92, Gamerankings: 91.6%
